


a fissure in my vision

by Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Blanket Permission, Blood, But also, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Don't Have to Know Canon, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fish out of Water, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Hunk (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not a Crossover, Pidge | Katie Holt Angst, Podfic Welcome, Psychological Trauma, Voltron Secret Santa 2020, for all the fandoms, for any of the fandoms listed except voltron, how is it keith and shiro are coming out of this fic with the least angst of all of them, kinda?? tagging to be safe, not too elaborately explored but touched on and kind of inherent to a fic like this, the others get angst too but they get the worst of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:42:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28346331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails/pseuds/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails
Summary: "It appears... Well, the Ranithians were under the impression that we were all adults by Terran standards. When they realized that you four technically aren't, or at least not entirely, they decided to... test you.""Test us."Lance's voice is flinty; icier than any of them have ever heard him, and he wears a face to match.It's not a question.(Or: Sometimes, the Paladins can't account for everything that might happen. Sometimes, even allies with good intentions can lead to awful things. Sometimes, your own mind is your worst enemy.And sometimes, being a Paladin really,reallysucks.)
Relationships: Everyone & Everyone, Hunk & Keith (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Voltron Secret Santa





	a fissure in my vision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhatWouldJackSparrowDo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatWouldJackSparrowDo/gifts).



> **TW:** character death, violence, blood, non-consensual drug use, hallucinations, spoilers for avatar: the last airbender throughout the series (but you don't need to know anything about it to read)
> 
> **please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be added.**
> 
> happy holidays, wwjacksparrowd!! I'm sorry this is so late! things got... very hectic here, to say the least, and I wasn't able to get this up even close to as soon as I'd meant to. I tried to get a bunch of your prompts in without making it too chaotic, because I just loved them all so much, so hopefully that worked out okay? your prompts = galaxy brain
> 
> also yoooo what are the odds we’d get each other?? hopefully this is as much fun for you to read as your wonderful fic has been for me!!!
> 
> title is from the quote, "There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through." (Anaïs Nin)

i. "Katie?"

Pidge blinks to at the sound of her name, sending an unpleasant shiver through her.

She doesn't like that. That's the first thing she really registers.

She's been called Katie almost all her life and mostly never had a problem with it, but—she _doesn't like that_.

Katie isn't something she's heard herself be called for a long time.

Generally, Shiro only calls her that when they're having a serious talk or he's feeling nostalgic, and only when they're alone. He calls her Pidge the rest of the time, and she still can't tell if it's meant to be out of respect for her or to distance them from their lives pre-Kerberos or both, so she doesn't ask.

The others all knew her as Pidge first, so it's that name they tend to stick to.

These days, _Katie_ is getting further and further away. Sometimes it feels so distant that that name might as well belong to a stranger, while on others, she aches for the part of her it used to belong to, and knows that she'll never find it again.

These days, _Katie_ feels like it's supposed to be off-limits to all but a very select group of people on very specific occasions, and it makes her feel all sorts of wrong to hear it used so casually.

No, she doesn't like that much at all, these days.

When the call comes again—"Katie? Are you alright?"—she finally takes the time to examine her surroundings.

She's in a large hall, with mirrored walls, full-to-the-brim bookcases, and squishy cushions scattered about the ground.

Definitely _not_ the Castleship, the Blades' base, any of the outposts they're meant to have visited in this month, the next, _or_ the last, and definitely _not_ anywhere she recognizes or is supposed to be.

Finally, her eyes are drawn to the speaker.

There's a girl and two boys. Each of them is looking at her with an expression that's equally puzzled and concerned.

They're human. Everyone in the room is, actually, and—and she doesn't recognize any of them at all.

They're all teens; some looking even younger than she was when Kerberos first took off, others looking like they might be edging out Keith in age, and the rest all scattered in between.

All of them are wearing school uniforms, and—so is she.

But all of that feels largely secondary, because—

Because—

"It's alright if you can't quite get it yet. The Patronus is a hard spell. We'd all understand if you need to sit down and take a moment to pick a different memory or recollect yourself."

The other girl brushes a stray curl out of her face and gestures around the edges of the room, where several of the other kids seem to be doing exactly what she said, either talking quietly with each other, thinking deeply, or even, in some cases, seeming to be in an almost meditative state.

One of the boys—the one with the glasses, and something that might be a scar on his forehead, but she can't really tell because of how his fringe covers it—offers her a sympathetic smile. "Takes a lot out of you, doesn't it? Never really made sense to me."

The thing about Pidge is that she is, arguably, a genius. Still, the only thing that comes from her mouth is a confused, "Huh?"

"I mean, it's supposed to be... energizing, I guess? Right? I've never quite gotten why it's so emotionally draining if that's the case. Feels like if it doesn't drive the dementors away, it's just making you an easier target for them."

Pidge understood only about sixty percent of that, mostly because she has no clue what _dementors_ are, or what this kid means by a _spell,_ or how they all just seem to _know_ her when she's positive she's never seen any of them before in her life.

"Yeah," She blurts, giving a tense smile and hoping they can't feel the sudden panic she's practically radiating. "Totally. Absolutely. One hundred percent."

—Because there are fucking _glowing animals_ flooding the room, all coming from fucking _sticks_.

No. No, no, nope, nuh-uh.

She can't deal with this.

There's some sort of explanation. There has to be. It's not like Voltron hasn't done a lot of similar mystic shit that is _totally scientifically explainable_.

Sticks. Floating, glowing animal apparitions. Uniforms. Spells.

If she's at a fucking _magic school_ or something—

ii. Lance has been dreaming of returning to Earth practically since they'd left it.

He hadn't ever imagined it'd be like this.

The worst part is that he doesn't even know how it happened. He'd just woken up alone in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

He's—he's the only one here.

He's pretty sure the rest of his team is dead.

Or, rather, he's pretty sure that whatever their equivalents in this place are—if they have any, that is—are dead, or at least not showing up anytime soon.

Because, here's the thing: Lance is a lot smarter than people tend to give him credit for. He would've never gotten into the Garrison otherwise, and he probably wouldn't have survived long around Hunk and Pidge if he wasn't, either, even if they tried their best, and even if he still isn't on their level enough to quite keep up with them all the time as it is. He tries not to beat himself up over that—there are very few people who _can_ keep up with them once they get going.

The point is, he's not stupid, despite what people think. He might have stupid _moments_ , but no, he's not stupid.

He's well aware that this isn't real.

He's also well aware that he has no idea how exactly this started, where his actual, _living_ team is, or how to get out of here. All that means is that he has no idea what the consequences of things that happen here will be, and he has no backup in the meantime while he works on figuring it out.

That means no Pidge or Hunk to rig up a distress signal or figure out some sort of detector or algorithm to locate shelter or resources, no Keith to keep a keen eye out for threats or pipe up with his niche survivalist skills or tips (because apparently when you're living in the desert alone and entirely off the grid, everything wants to kill you), no Shiro to plan out the next move or keep morale high, no Allura to pull him out of his head when he's being an idiot or fill in where his knowledge is lacking, no Coran to fix things if any of his equipment breaks. It also means no healing pods, nothing to pass the time (not even petty bickering), nobody to stop him from acting on his less than inspired ideas, no resources, and—he cannot stress this enough— _no backup_.

Since he has no idea how he got here, either, he has no idea if getting himself hurt or killed here is going to get him hurt or killed in the real world—whatever that's supposed to be right now.

What it _means_ is that he's on his own out here, completely.

And just like any other solo mission—if he slips up, he's dead.

This might not be _real,_ not in the way it's _supposed_ to, but for all intents and purposes, it has to be. He can't afford to treat this with any sort of flippancy or dream logic, this time, because this time, he doesn't even have the reassurance of help being in the same _universe_.

So.

It's a bit of a problem that he has _no idea what happened here_.

End of the world, it looks like, but that's not helpful in the slightest. If seventeen years of popular media consumption and three of emergency management and disaster preparation classes at the Garrison have taught him anything, it's that there are _way_ too many avenues to apocalypse that most people aren't aware of—and that's only taking into account what he'd considered _before_ they'd been made aware of the whole _you are not alone but you are_ _severely outclassed_ thing, as well as assuming that they're still operating on actual Terran parameters, or actual parameters that their universe could realistically account for _at all,_ both of which he has to doubt on principle, because of course, that'd just be too easy—and he's well learned by now that the easy things are always the ones with the most fine-print.

Zombies? Luckily, unlikely. If they're the cause, they're sure taking their sweet time showing up—or have long ago been done away with themselves.

Nuclear war? No nuclear shadows that he's seen yet, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything—except that all his efforts toward actually staying safe and attempting to maintain his health might amount to absolute jackshit in the end if there _is_ a nuclear element involved.

Maybe someone blew up the moon? Yeah, this was one of those ones that came up after he'd exhausted all other ideas, he'll admit it. Either way, it's not really like he's able to _tell_. There's so much dust in the air here, and it blankets the sky at night—if the moon's there to shine, he isn't able to see it.

He spends each day moving out through the ruined city he's landed himself in, alternating his search in grid and spiral patterns.

He searches for survivors, if there are any of those left. If nothing else, he searches for bodies—signs, clues of what happened here, _anything_ to give him _something_.

No dice.

It's like every living creature suddenly imploded with the force of a pipebomb one day, all at the same time as far as the eye can see, and left no organic remnants in their wake.

He searches for shelter—places that are both easily accessible and defendable, preferably sealed enough to offer some imagined semblance of temperature control and keep out rain or a draft, with little to no mold or pests.

Well—maybe not entirely that last one. He's not picky enough to be able to turn down insects as a food source. (He can't help but jokingly think that they're not as good as everyone always claimed, nor as good as he remembers. He doesn't know how long he has to make things last out here; he's not going out of his way to find spices or anything, and he's not wasting resources on, say, starting a fire to better prepare anything he's caught that he's able to eat raw without adverse consequences.)

He searches for supplies—food, water, medicine, useful things.

Nonperishable food items and stale bottled water are his friends.

The other things come sporadically. A length of rope and a roll of gaff tape from the husk of a community theater (and those _are_ useful, thank you very much, because gaff tape is _always_ useful, and he remembers his knots well enough), a stack of promising books from a public library (the apocalypse is _boring_ ), a utility belt with a selection of tools (he's not entirely sure how he's supposed to use them all, but he's sure they'll come in handy some time), a Rubik's cube (again, _boring_. Pulling a _Wall-E_ is the least this hellscape owes him), the like.

He rations, stretches anything and everything as long as he can, expands his search circle wider and wider, gives up a little more every time.

He has no idea just how long he's going to be there yet.

iii. Keith doesn't like it here.

He'd gotten used to being alone, and then gotten used to being with his team—he'd never factored this situation into any sort of plan.

The people who take him in seem nice enough.

They're all kids, though, living in the woods, sparring in their free time, patrolling, making plans—all so familiar, but still so _off_.

They ask him if he's a 'bender'—whatever _that_ is—and then reassure him that none of them are, either, when he apparently proves to them that he's not.

He doesn't like their leader, either.

Jet, his name is.

No, Keith doesn't like Jet.

He reminds him too much of himself.

He's sure some of the others would scoff at the comparison if he ever bothered to voice it, but he knows himself well enough to realize when he's looking in a funhouse mirror.

Jet's real laid-back; easy-going in a way Keith's never quite managed, but he's _sharp_. There's little his gaze misses, and Longshot's there for all the things that slip through the cracks. He justifies his means with an end they haven't yet achieved, guards 'his kids' with a fierceness only born from loss, is terrified and furious and everything in between and—

Perhaps, Keith supposes, they are not so much alike after all. Only their shades of anger, lingering beneath the surface, the craters in their lives others have left behind, the recklessness that would be there if they hadn't others to worry about, to temper them.

Anything for everything, everything for anything. Them for the mission.

It's still a closer comparison than he's comfortable with.

The others are nice enough, he supposes.

There's a lot of them—dozens, hundreds, maybe; he doesn't know how Jet keeps track of them all, in this maze of treetops and pully systems—but he sticks to some of the older ones, the ones closer to his own age (his own age and his team's).

Smellerbee's even more similar to him than Jet and that maybe scares him more than it should, but she's got a good heart.

Longshot's a pretty cool guy, but it's frustrating to spend time with him because Keith's never been very good at reading people, and no one else seems to need Longshot to spell out any of what he's thinking, just knowing him well enough to _know_.

Generally, he just avoids the trio.

There's Pipsqueak and The Duke, who are really more of a package deal than anything else. Pipsqueak's even older than Shiro, though not by a whole lot, but The Duke—well, Keith isn't sure how old The Duke is, but he'd eat Coran's Paladin Special if the kid's any older than nine, at most. They're fun, though.

Pipsqueak's a bit of a gentle giant, and The Duke's pretty chill for his age, with just the right edge of rambunctiousness that he always seems to know the perfect times to let out (more often than not, squabbles with guards in the forest tend to fall into this category).

But there's always something that just doesn't _sit_ right with him, staying with these 'Freedom Fighters' in the forest and not really _doing_ anything.

Not attacking Fire Nation soldiers—he doesn't feel bad about that, after what the others have told him, and certainly after what he's seen from them himself during those excursions—but every time they accost a 'suspicious traveler', this feeling comes back around; the one that says _you don't belong here_.

He knows that no one in the world is entirely blameless, and he has no hope of getting a true read on any of the people who pass through here or the full scope of the social climate, but surely—surely this isn't _right_ either?

Because it's not just _you don't belong here_. It's also _what on earth are you doing _and _the team would be disgusted if they could see you now_ and _but this feels right_ and _don't they deserve this?_ and some deep ache in his gut rumbling about _perhaps you were not the paladin I thought, after all_ and he doesn't _understand_ because there's just _so much_ and—

And maybe the Freedom Fighters are doing good things, here.

But he needs to get back to his team, and he doesn't know how he's supposed to do that, but it's not by staying here.

What's that saying the Garrison instructors liked to flaunt so much, but never follow?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained?

Well.

Perhaps they were good for something, after all.

iv. Pidge takes back every single joking wish or game about magic that she's ever played.

She really, really hates magic.

She hates the people who practice it, too.

Partly because she's pretty sure they're using the terms they use to describe themselves wrong (or maybe non-magical people—muggles, whatever—and their definitions of the words 'witch' and 'wizard' have no bearing on the matter, since they have no knowledge about the actual magical world? Perhaps magical people view themselves differently on a fundamental level that she couldn't explain without feeling herself? Perhaps they came to the same terms in entirely different manners, leading to the difference in definition? Or they did have the same understandings of the terms, but as magical and non-magical cultures continued to grow more and more separate, there was a similar or even parallel divergence in their definition and consideration of certain words? Or—right, not the point), but mostly because they have _no idea_ how their magic even _works_.

There's not even the most basic _attempt_ at a justification, much less a scientific one, for almost everything they can do. They pass it off as exactly what they call it— _magic_.

But Pidge has always been one of those people who's firmly of the mind that if magic were ever to exist, in all reality, it would just be science that wasn't understood yet.

Hell, they're in the _90s_ in _electronic-barren wizard haven_. If Voltron showed up at this place, they'd probably think that that was magic, too.

She might have even thought that once, if she didn't think the way she did, and rational, quantifiable, _logical_ and _scientific_ things they'd just never seen before were brought to their attention, like reality comets, quintessence, and Olkari tech; things that all made _sense_ once you were able to _understand_ them, which they just hadn't been able to, yet (and, if she's being completely honest, she'll reluctantly admit that it may be a few years—or far more—before she's able to fully grasp the science behind them all, herself).

She'll figure magic out eventually.

She has to.

v. When Hunk first comes to, he's running for his life.

He's not sure how he knows this, but there's a sort of _understanding_ there, something that resonates in his bones, that tells him that if he dares to falter, he _will die_.

His body is on course to a strangely shaped building, surrounded by crates, bags, and weapons. There's numerous other teenagers surrounding him, all doing the exact same thing, and—it's a fucking bloodbath.

He holds down the sudden surge of nausea at seeing an eleven-year-old get their throat slit not thirty feet away only through sheer force of will and the inescapable, inexplicable knowledge that if he doesn't, that will be him next.

Alright.

Keep running.

Reassess.

This—whatever it is—some sort of mockery of a cornucopia?—is a death trap.

Don't stay. Don't falter even to search for anything useful.

Can't get much use out of anything but a funeral suit and a coffin once you're dead.

His eyes frantically dart around the available supplies. He has _no idea_ where he is or what he's getting into. Chances are, he's going to need at least _something_ that he doesn't already have on his person.

Namely, because he has absolutely no idea what he has on his person right now. That's an entirely different kind of anxiety meant for normal days and currently irrelevant, though, so he just takes the fact for what it is and _goes_.

Backpack. Canteen hooked through a side loop. _There_.

He alters his course just slightly and snatches his prize of most-likely-to-have-basic-necessities-and-other-odds-and-ends-he-can-hopefully-do-things-with-if-needed.

Next.

It's not safe here, that much is obvious. Already, he counts at least three bodies, and five others caught in vicious battles for survival.

He's outnumbered. He's in the open. He's a target. He needs to get to shelter, find a place to rest, take inventory, figure out what's going on, then have his freakout.

He heads for the tree-line and hopes he's making the right choice.

vi. It's Pidge's birthday.

April third already.

She's been here for so, so long. Too long. Longer than she should've been.

It was winter when she came here. She thinks it was supposed to be summer when she'd left.

She wouldn't know, really. She can't quite remember what the last real moment before _here_ was, and it's hard to keep track of time in space. It's like Earth's time zones combined with all the different arguments about measuring systems and Celsius vs. Fahrenheit for everyday use, all mashed together and then blown up on an irritatingly incomprehensible scale.

But—

It's 1996 here. It's definitely a different season than whatever it would've been on Earth. Does that mean she gained time, or lost it? What way of viewing the situation is most relevant?

If it's her birthday now, when she's pretty sure her birthday this year _(her_ year) but not-here already passed, does that actually make it her birthday again? Does she say she's sixteen now? Probably not. But that would mean that when she goes back (and it is a _when_ , it has to be a _when_ , not an _if_ , she can't handle an _if_ , has never done well with them, thinks she can take one for this situation about as well as she's been handling the one about Matt and their dad), she'll be—three months ahead? Four?

Older than she was whenever she left.

Does that mean she should start celebrating her birthday in July, now? Or will she just have to live with being months older than whatever-age-she's-supposed-to-be-now for the rest of her life, knowing she's sixteen, seventeen, whatever, before the season even turns, even if she doesn't quite know _when_?

Days, months, weeks. How does that line up? They feel like they're going by so slowly here, and she finds herself wondering if any time is passing at all in the real world, or if this is all in her head.

She's mostly been operating on the assumption that no time is passing in the real world—or at least, a significantly lesser amount. She's not quite sure how that would work or what that means for her perception of things, but apparently, she attends in a magic school in Scotland in the 90s, where the sociopolitical climate is incredibly tense because a very vocal quarter or so of the population believe an infamous terrorist rose from the dead, and the other three quarters plus their secret, culty, separate-from-the-normal-system government is in denial of this but going to incredibly drastic and counter-intuitive lengths to prove it.

Yeah, she's pretty sure that it's safe to say her perception of things as of late has been significantly... abnormal. She's also pretty sure that this whole place has alien-wackadoo-dreamscape tech and/or drugs written all over it. That means: the passage of time as it appears here? Not something she can trust.

And that brings her back to square one. Like everything here does.

So, because she doesn't have the mental capacity to deal with the infinite possible in-betweens with everything else going on, she has to accept the fact that either she's spent the last several months in an entirely made-up world, or virtually no time has passed at all, and it only feels like it. (She's giving that second option a week in the definition of "virtually no time," because that's rather subjective and unrealistic when you think about it, and she prefers to give her and her catastrophizing a bit of a buffer even when she's being optimistic, which she definitely is in this case.)

She's not sure which option is worse.

vii He'd needed to leave anyway.

The dam was just the straw that broke the camel's back, the Avatar and his friends just a convenient opportunity.

Or, they were supposed to be.

But then he started getting _invested_.

He's not _supposed_ to be, doesn't _want_ to be—he's supposed to be trying to get back to his team, and he's always had trouble being around new people, anyway.

The thing is, though, _new people_ quickly become very much the opposite when you're with them every moment of every day.

There's no becoming a hermit in the middle of the desert, no escaping to the training room alone at night to blow off some steam, no ducking into long-empty conference rooms or his bedroom when he needs a moment. No, he is very much _never alone_ here.

Ninety percent of their time is spent actually in the act of traveling, riding Appa from one place to another, which means he's stuck in a twenty square foot area (if he's being _generous_ ) with sunshine-personified, Ms. Optimism, Mr. Realism, and a large splash of repressed trauma for all of them. Plus the monkey. Lemur. Whatever.

When they actually set up camp for the night, they pretty much eat and go straight to sleep. He couldn't even convince them to let him sleep when they're traveling and take watch when they're camping, because they claimed it wasn't healthy, they should share the work equally, and that he'd never be able to get any decent sleep with all the wind and their talking during the journey.

It's unfortunately safe to say that they grow on him very, very quickly. Mostly because he doesn't have a choice in the matter, but still.

Worse, they're all... surprisingly insightful people. It's—strange.

He has more conversations with them about his emotions in the first three weeks of traveling with them than he has with anybody since Kerberos launched.

He's not very used to opening up, and he doesn't like it much, but they make it feel... natural. Okay. Unforced. They don't push where he doesn't want to talk, either.

They pick up Toph, and she reminds him of some unholy combination of Pidge and Lance, with her own special flavoring thrown in.

Her adjustment is... rougher than his. He'll be the first to admit (and that's new, isn't it?) that he certainly didn't make it any easier.

She certainly wasn't shy about pointing out how anti-social he is, and how... not fun and too intense he and Katara are, to put it lightly.

And... yeah, maybe that's not a revelation. But maybe it is one when he realizes that it hurts him not only because he actually cares about what these people think, but also because he _wants_ to be able to have fun. He doesn't want to be strung through with tension at every moment and not even know why.

Once things start smoothing out a little—well, Toph's... actually able to help with that. They all are.

He has a significant re-lapse of that behavior on a much larger scale in wake of Ba Sing Se (Because _Aang—twelve-year-old_ _Aang_ —almost _died_ because Zuko's _literal child sister_ —the same age as Katara, the same age as _Pidge_ —had _shot him full of lightning_ with the intent to kill in her eyes and a smug smirk on her face. They'd _barely_ saved the kid. And Keith still doesn't know exactly what went down with Zuko and Katara before they'd found them, but she'd seemed pretty damn betrayed when he'd attacked them—though not nearly as much as his uncle did when the teenager turned on _him_. _That_ was not something Keith had ever seen coming. And even moving past the absolute clusterfuck that _entire_ confrontation had been, Jet _did_ die. Jet's _just a kid_ and was _trying to do the right thing_ and actually _succeeding_ this time and he was _killed_. Keith adamantly does not think about what this means for Smellerbee and Longshot, and what the trio's presence in the city at all means for all the children that had been under their care. He isn't sure he wants to know the answer), but he's actually able to set it aside once they connect with the warriors from the Southern Water Tribe, and there are actual adults there to take care of things—something he hasn't had in _years_ _._

The war is still looming in an undeniable and terrifying way; the minimal safety net hadn't erased the months of constant danger that had, at least, been something of a constant between this universe and the last, if in very different forms.

When the invasion goes south, he can't really say he wasn't expecting it.

When Sokka gets a sword, Keith finally has someone to spar with, with a weapon of his own he'd claimed way back when he was still with the Freedom Fighters.

When Zuko joins the team, he's surprised to find someone just as bad at opening up (but just as desperate for it) as he is.

When both of the other boys apparently stage a jailbreak in an effort more impulsive than Keith thinks he's ever been and even less thought out than Lance's infamous _backup_ _plans_ that the team sometimes have to resort to when the _actual_ backup plans go to shit—both of which are _saying_ something—and bring back a whole dad and friendly now-ex-con, well.

Hakoda is good to talk to. Chit-Sang has a good sense of humor. Suki has an even better one. They're all good to spar with.

He... actually has friends, here. A clear goal they actually might have a chance at attaining.

He wakes up with a genuine smile on his face a few days before the Western Air Temple is attacked, and when he realizes that it happened, he just sits there and basks in the gloriousness of being genuinely _happy_ despite everything going on, and that being _alright_ in a way he'd never let himself make it before.

When the day of the Comet is over, he's almost sad to see it go.

He goes to sleep that night exhausted and content, in a very carefully constructed heap of limbs with the others, injuries tended to and avoided, basking in their victory and relief before their work begins anew.

The next time he wakes up, he's alone in a Castle healing pod.

viii. "Miss Holt, what seems to be the problem?"

Pidge blinks.

She has a lot of different ways she could answer that, but none of them are what the Professor is looking for. Certainly, they're nothing she would know about, nothing she would keep her after class for.

"Excuse me?"

Professor McGonagall frowns just a bit more.

"Your problem with your classes. You are a very bright student, Miss Holt, but you seem to have been struggling lately with the material. I've spoken with your other Professors, and they appear to be noticing much of the same in regards to your behavior in their own classes. I'm aware that I'm not your Head of House, but I'm not in the habit of letting my students fall without trying to help them back up. Or, at least, trying to understand _why_."

Pidge purses her lips. To these people, she's been attending this school for years, and has practiced magic that entire time with little to no problems on her part. More than that, the way things are here are just accepted at face-value by these people, with virtually no further thought or care to the matter. How is she supposed to explain that this place makes _no sense_ to her and that she's been trying to find answers for _months_ , but all it ever leads to is more questions?

How is she supposed to explain just how fucking crazy it's driving her?

Well. No one ever claimed she was a savant with words.

So, she just says exactly what she's thinking.

"I just. I don't understand."

McGonagall quirks an eyebrow quizically, and it's like that's all that was needed to open up the floodgates, because suddenly Pidge is word-vomiting uncontrollably.

"I just—magic doesn't make sense! At all! None of it! I've been trying to figure it out for _months_ _,_ if there's any scientific basis for any of it at _all_ , even just a _basic understanding_ of _what's going on_ or what its functions are grounded in, but I have _nothing_. There are _no_ books on it. Nobody else knows anything about it, and more than that, they don't even _care_ that they don't know! It's like—how am I supposed to understand something that follows no rules? How am I ever supposed to be able to get answers when there are only ever more holes in my knowledge being pointed out when I do? How am I supposed to _trust_ something so—something so _unpredictable_? So _deceiving_ and _senseless_? I can barely wrap my head around the _theory_ because it _doesn't make sense_ , but I'm supposed to just—what? _Wish_ things into existence? Focus really hard? Bend reality to my fucking will through sheer determination and intent? That's not how things _work_. They're not supposed to—not supposed to _be_ like that. Things can't just _happen_ without a reason. _Everything has a reason_. And it's _our_ job to _find_ that reason, but nobody's even trying! If there's no reason behind it, then what's the _point_? It's just—it's _madness_."

By the time she's finished, she's shouted more than once, and her voice is trembling with emotion not fit for the current topic of conversation.

She doesn't understand it. She doesn't _mean_ to.

But she's been _trying_ , trying for so long, to just figure it out—something, _anything_.

She's been trying for a lot longer than she's been at this place.

And she's _tired_ of it.

She just wants her family back together again, her friends all in one piece, with no magic or intergalactic wars to complicate everything.

She just wants a moment to _rest_.

"Oh," McGonagall breathes, a look of understanding and sympathy crossing her face. "I... I see."

_I don't, but I get it. I don't understand, but I understand enough._

And that's—

That's such a little thing, just two tiny words, but something about them pushes Pidge over the edge, and before she can stop herself, she's crumbled into desperate sobs that she's been holding in since before she left the name _Katie_ behind.

A hand lightly touches her shoulder, unsure for a moment; the Professor's rounded her desk and is crouched next to her chair now. She's a tough-love kind of teacher, and lord knows more than one of the Gryffindors have convinced themselves that showing weakness equates to a lack of bravery. It's a stray thought that makes her wonder just how out of her depth McGonagall is with comforting teenagers, even with all the years of teaching.

The appendage flutters there hesitantly before McGonagall makes up her mind, pulling the Green Paladin into gentle hug.

It's... nice.

It's not like the others never hug her, but this is different.

She hasn't been able to hug her mom in almost a year now, but it kind of reminds her of the sort of hugs she'd give.

It only makes Pidge cry harder.

"Miss Holt," McGonagall begins, then pauses. "...Pidge."

She's never heard her new name said so softly before. It's a sound she wants to live in, wrap around her soul like a warm blanket, never let go.

"Sometimes... there isn't a reason to things. And sometimes, when there is, you might never find out what it is. That's something I'm afraid you'll have to learn to accept. But we keep going because we can assign our own reason to them. Discover them for yourself. Give them your own meaning."

 _Give them your own meaning_.

Pidge likes the sound of that.

"...Have a biscuit, Pidge."

When she trudges back to her dorm, she does so repeating those words over and over again to herself, a mantra to be pounded into her soul, again and again and again until she almost thinks she _believes_ it, and falls asleep almost before her head even hits the pillow, completely worn out and utterly exhausted from the day's events.

When she wakes up, instead of staring at the heavy curtains of her four-poster, she's greeted with the familiar sight that comes from peering out of a healing pod.

All she can think about is that she forgot to say thank you for the cookie.

ix. For the first four days and nights, Hunk's been camped out in the top branches of a tree not far outside the clearing with the cornucopia building.

Everyone else seems to either be in the clearing itself or deep in the forest, with little in-between, and none of them think to look there, either.

At night, he creeps down to relieve himself and goes to the river to fill his canteen and do his best to gather any edible moss he can (and larger bugs, if he's lucky), as well as check some of his traps. He'll find the most well-lit spot he dares to occupy, and do his best to quickly skin and prep whatever small animals he's caught. (He often also takes the opportunity to be sick somewhere.)

Sometimes, he'll just walk and keep walking, trying to find the edges of this place, to get _out_. He finds out very quickly that that's not possible.

After he's done, or if he hears anyone coming, he'll retreat to his hideaway among the treetops.

Each day, he sees fewer and fewer people racing past his tree.

Each evening, around what he thinks is supposed to be the turning of a new day, a succession of cannon blasts will shake the earth, and a series of pictures will be projected from somewhere into the sky.

None of them are older than him. The youngest are even younger than Pidge looks.

Best he can figure at this point, it's a—death tournament, of some sort.

The last one standing wins is the theory he's operating on, because it's currently the safest available assumption.

He'd had a solid three hours using his own headband as a gag after that revelation, doing his best to muffle the panicked sobbing, even as high up as he was.

He has to get out of here, preferably alive. Yes, he would very much like to leave this in one piece.

The thing is, he doesn't have all the variables, here, and because of that, all he can really think of to do that is to see this thing through.

When the sky starts fluctuating in ways no sky should on the dawn of the fourth day, he takes the hint and packs his things, heading to ground not half an hour before thunder begins shaking the arena—because that's what this is, he's decided; an arena, like someone put them here for their own sick entertainment—at unpredictable but far too frequent intervals, lightning washing the world white.

When a boy who looks a little too much like James Griffin from down the hall at the Garrison tries to split his head open via a large, sturdy-looking branch that'd been whittled into a wicked point, he doesn't mean to do what he does.

All he wanted was to get out of the encounter alive. That's it.

He hadn't meant to hurt anyone—had made a promise to himself that he _wouldn't_ , as soon as he figured out what they're supposed to be doing here, as soon as he got involved in Voltron's war.

Hunk's never been the cynical kind, but he thinks that perhaps there's a reason the phrase _promises are made to be broken_ is so commonly used.

Sometimes, accidents happen.

And sometimes, that's okay.

Sometimes, it's not.

In the moments—hours, days, weeks—after, he will waste away slivers of his soul trying to pinpoint exactly what happened during this event. He will never quite be able to provide an answer he's sure of.

All he knows is that the kid had sprung from between a couple of large boulders in an outcrop lining the hill, cutting through the woods, with a roar, a weapon, and clear intent in his eyes.

Hunk knows—knows when it happens, knows after it's over, knows but can't ever quite bring himself to believe—that one of them wasn't going to be leaving that encounter alive.

A choice had to be made.

Hunk knows that by the time he could fully process everything again, the boy was dead. His neck and head were mangled. Hunk thinks maybe he snapped his neck. The boy's weapon was splintered and broken, covered in red liquid that leaked from numerous wounds in the prone body, the gash on Hunk's own side, the one on his face, coating his hands and splattered across his skin and clothes.

When he finds a new place to settle that night, only one cannon rings out in the night.

When he dares to look up, the face of the boy he killed is splashed across the sky in glowing light, and the last thing Hunk knows about it all settles heavy in his chest: _that could have been him._

Maybe it _should_ have been.

He wants to get out of here, though. He doesn't want to die.

He's just not quite sure he wants to go back to his team or Earth, anymore. Hunk doesn't think he can face any of them after this.

He'd never imagined himself capable of what he'd done.

He hopes he never will be again.

The next night, he convinces himself to surface long enough to scrub the itchy blood off to the best of his ability, and when he hears yelling downriver, he knows with a terrible certainty that he'll have to be.

x. "There was... a misunderstanding."

The silence that follows that statement is _deafening_.

All four of them stare at Shiro, incredulous, horrified, and hurt.

If he were a lesser man, the Black Paladin might've broken and tried to justify the situation without further prompting.

As it was, they go almost five whole minutes before anyone speaks again.

It's Hunk who ends up breaking the silence.

"That's not what I'd call a _misunderstanding_ , Shiro."

His voice is so soft it's almost a whisper, rough with the tears in his eyes that he won't let fall.

Shiro has the decency to look ashamed here, but for the most part, his neutral facade stays up.

"It appears... Well, the Ranithians were under the impression that we were all adults by Terran standards. When they realized that you four technically aren't, or at least not entirely, they decided to... test you."

"Test us."

Lance's voice is flinty; icier than any of them have ever heard him, and he wears a face to match.

It's not a question.

"It's a traditional process for them. Upon reaching adulthood, one is fed the plant, and then is sent into a world inside their head for an indeterminate length of time. They felt you were ready to undergo the test if you were truly Paladins, and that if you weren't ready for the test, you weren't ready to be Paladins, and they would void any alliance with us until there were no... 'children fighting our battles.'"

"What does the plant do, Shiro?" Pidge asks, her voice a dangerous sort of even.

Shiro purses his lips.

"It's supposed to send you into a dream-like world—"

Shiro falters as Lance lets out a bitter snort at the choice of words.

"...Where you're put in whatever scenario may be necessary to get you to... overcome internal barriers that you've created for yourselves, I think they said."

"Overcome internal barriers."

"...Yes."

Their leader eyes Hunk carefully. He's regarding all four of them with a wariness none of them had ever thought they would need to direct at each other.

For another moment, Hunk just looks at him, gaze burning with something not quite anger—something softer, something worse.

Then—

"I killed three people, Shiro."

If there was ever a phrase to grab their attention, it would be that one.

Hunk is not meant for killing. He can barely stomach _flying_ , which he does every day.

He's machines and cookies and hugs. He's soft things and sunshine and smiles.

He's said it himself many times—he's a lover, not a fighter.

He's the Yellow Paladin. He's meant to protect.

Hunk is not meant for killing.

Before all of this happened, he may have even agreed with that sentiment.

The thing that people so often tend to forget is that there's never just one side to anything.

Machines have been made for death before—to injure, yes, but also to corral, catch, crush, kill. Even cookies can be laced with arsenic. It only takes a very dedicated, very strong person to hug someone and keep hugging until it hurts, until there are bones cracking, until there is no person left to hug and only to hold.

Have you ever loved something? Have you ever loved something so much that you want to protect it?

Sometimes, if you love something, you have to fight for it.

Have you ever loved something so much you'd die for it?

So much you'd kill for it?

Sometimes, part of protecting people is doing terrible things to keep them safe.

Sometimes, the question isn't what you'd do for love.

Sometimes, the question is what you wouldn't do.

You don't need to be able to stomach murder to do it, so long as you can hold the sick back until after the job is done.

"Maybe there's a reason those barriers were supposed to be there."

_Maybe it's because if you break them down enough, soon you won't have anything to build them back up with._

"I don't think I like whatever barriers I crossed."

No one responds, but their answers are clear to see: Lance doesn't either, and Pidge and Keith aren't sure how they feel about any of this at all.

"Well?" It's Lance's bracing voice that shatters the quiet they've settled into, this time.

The others blink at him, not understanding at first what's being asked, but the Blue Paladin only has eyes for the oldest of them.

Only when no one can figure out how to respond does he actually bother to ask the question.

"Did we pass their test?"

Shiro doesn't have an answer for them.

It's something none of them will ever quite manage to forgive him for.

xi. "What's wrong?"

Hunk startles, his grip on the rolling pin suddenly shifting into something much less _baking tool_ and more _deadly weapon_.

It's there for just a second, before he seems to recognize Keith in the kitchen doorway, and then it's gone.

Hunk breathes out deeply, forcing himself to relax.

"What do you mean?"

The look Keith levels at him is so dry and unimpressed that Hunk breaks eye contact, going back to rolling out the lavender-colored dough.

One thing that's apparently changed after whatever went down with the Ranithians: Keith's a lot more patient. Or, at least patient enough where he wasn't before to wait him out—Hunk breaks first.

"How much do you think the things we did matter?"

He doesn't need to specify when.

Keith chews his lip, taking a moment to think.

Hunk's expression is guarded, but Keith can tell that he at least understands the hesitation; they haven't talked much at all about the things that happened, but he has a hunch that he was in that dream world for a lot longer than Hunk was. He'd had more time to come to terms with any moral dilemmas that cropped up, even if they weren't fully settled yet, and based on the things that'd happened... well, Keith wouldn't call his journey a walk in the park, but he's pretty sure that the _obstacles_ he'd had to overcome were... kinder than the ones Hunk had had to—and the other boy hadn't had nearly as much time to handle the aftermath.

 _I killed three people, Shiro_.

Keith eight months ago—three days ago—wouldn't have any idea what to say to that question.

He'd probably have fumbled the answer and mangled it on its way out, letting it drop from his mouth clumsy, harsh, and awkward. The Hunk then probably would've let him, and then pretended none of it bothered him.

The Keith now has almost a year of Katara and Aang's traveling boot camp for healthily expressing your emotions (though sometimes he felt that they weren't always the most qualified instructors, but who was he to judge?), as well as Sokka's _always have some sort of a plan even if that plan is absolutely shit_ mentality, Toph's _stop running away from conversations_ attitude, and even several weeks of Suki's exasperation with him ignoring all of the aforementioned things and having to see them all reflected back at him through Zuko to understand just how maybe-not-great his approach to these things has been in the past.

The Keith now thinks about Katara, about Hama, blood-bending. He thinks about team jail-break talking in soft voices about Mei and what might've happened to her, about how they'd left her. He thinks about Jet, doing whatever was necessary and then some to protect a bunch of traumatized kids from a world looking to make martyrs and victims out of them. He thinks about the wreckages of ships they'd passed when they'd left the North Pole, the way they'd all watched Yue and done nothing, the stark white ice marred with blood and soot and bodies, the Northern Water Tribe members rejoicing in the streets, reveling not in victory but in continued life, mourning their dead and preparing to send them off with respect, already patching up their ruined buildings and destroyed walls—about how he can't imagine what they could've possibly done to get one without the other. (He thinks about how he's back now, to the people and place he'd been trying to get to for so long, that the war is over and that's a good thing, that none of them were ever real in the first place, and about how even when he knows all of this, it _hurts_ that they were all ripped away from him without so much as a _goodbye_ to or from any of them.)

The Keith now has thought a lot about this _before_ , and is thinking a lot about it _now_ , and he thinks he might actually be able to handle this conversation with some degree of poise.

The Hunk now just _waits_.

When he finally begins to speak, the Red Paladin does so slowly, choosing his words carefully as he goes.

"I think... that you did what you had to do to survive, and that's okay. It doesn't make what you did good. It doesn't mean you have to like what you did or the person you turned into. It doesn't really mean that you should be forgiven for it, either. But you have to know that it's okay. The best part about life is that we get to actively choose who we are. If you don't like the Hunk that did those things, you don't have to be him anymore. You can choose to do _better_ , whatever that means to you. You can choose to be someone you _do_ like. We're lucky, because none of that was real. Those people weren't real. That doesn't mean what you did isn't real, but it's... more forgiving, I think. We don't know what would have happened if you'd been hurt or died in—that world. You did what you had to do, and you're here now because of it. That's what matters. We have the rest of our lives to atone for any mistakes we've made, imagined or otherwise."

It's—not quite what he means, but he supposes he can spend all the time in the world making friends and talking about his feelings, and it still won't make actually putting what he means into words any easier in practice, only saying them. He can only hope that Hunk understands.

It occurs to him that this may be the most they've ever spoken.

The Yellow Paladin looks at him with an intensity he never would've expected to see from the boy, and Keith does his best to look _back_ , to not shift under the weight of that searching gaze.

"...Thanks, Keith."

He turns back to his baking as if the conversation's over, had never even happened, and it's so abrupt and out of character that Keith's almost taken aback.

"I'm trying to make sugar cookies," He says casually. _T_ _rying_ , because you never quite know what you're going to get with incredibly unfamiliar ingredients and no guide on how to use them or any idea on what could serve as a substitute for what, he remembers Hunk explaining what seems like forever ago. "Want any?"

Keith's lips twitch up.

"I'd be honored."

xii. Does it count?

In the end, that seems to be what it all boils down to: if it was all in their head, did any of it ever really happen? Should any of what happened carry any weight with them at all?

Would they do it again?

In the real world, where there is no question about moral consequences _existing_ or _not existing_ , only _should_ they _shouldn't_ they, where they can trust that all of the things around them are actually happening, that it can't be undone, that there is no magic solution—

 _Would they do it again_?

Does it count?

Keith starts chuckling at their jokes more, starts learning how the others move to better cover them, letting them protect him in turn. Lance narrates every internal thought and doesn't speak for days in turns, is less prone to starting petty arguments or distracting people when they're in the middle of something. Pidge is more willing to accept when things don't have clear, logical explanations, less ready to chase ultimately unnecessary knowledge to perilous danger. Hunk wanders the halls at night instead of sleeping, and flinches when one of them fires a blaster.

There are more differences, more changes.

(Like when Pidge sits at her computer for the first time since they got back and just stares at it for half an hour, trying to recall the steps, where to start, how to do something that was once so natural to her, and then spent the next two hours picking through the steps of something that might once have taken her twenty minutes; or when one of them will make a gesture without thinking about it and Keith will instinctively duck; or how Hunk has to spend the first week out of the pods trying to get his sleep schedule back on track when his mind remembers it one way and his body remembers it another; or how Lance will cling to them without warning, sometimes poking them or laying a hand on their shoulder or something just to make sure they're there.)

Not all of them are good, but not all of them are bad, either.

It counts.

And they can take as much time as they need to figure out how it all adds up.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so,,,
> 
> \- I'm sorry there was so little lance!! I can never write his character well, and after I stuck him alone and unprepared in a post-apocalyptic wasteland I figured that honestly whatever one could imagine his time there was like would probably be worse than whatever it would end up looking like if I tried to write it out. just know that he was there for a very, very long time. how long is up to your imagination, but it's a few years, at least. his "test" lasted longer than any of the others' did, mostly because...
> 
> \- hopefully these could kind of be picked up a little bit, but they were kind of meant to go along the lines of this: pidge's "barrier": always needing an answer for things, not being able to just accept them as they are and let them go; keith's: not letting himself open up to other people and trust them; hunk's: it's a little harder to verbalize this one. I guess that sometimes he needs to put himself before others? or that he has to be able to make hard decisions if he's going to be able to live to see another day and help anybody or protect the people he loves? that you can't always save everyone? not everybody wants to be saved? and that doing bad things doesn't necessarily automatically make you a bad person? idk I think there's a lot of room to play there, his is kind of more open to your interpretation; lance's: his dependence on people. I'm not really saying that in a "he's not independent and can't take care of himself" way, but in more in a sense of he's always just had a lot of loved ones in his life, and he's used to having them around, to ground him, act as a safety net, keep his spirits high and everything, and wouldn't quite know what to do with himself if left totally alone with no hope of a rescue ever coming. I'm not saying I think these characters _need_ to overcome these things, and definitely not that they're _all_ good lessons for them to learn because some are definitely,,, not very healthy, just that these seemed to me like some of the major subconscious rules or boundaries they'd set for themselves, and in the situation that is v v vaguely alluded to bc I'm allergic to setup and also thought it would be more fun to just be mean and throw them right into the deep end (that situation being something along the lines of they were visiting a planet trying to get an alliance or something with them, the locals found out those four are children (yes I included Keith bc I thought that gaang could be good for him and also there's?? not really a huge difference between being 17 and being 18? especially when you've literally become a hermit and have had absolutely no social interaction whatsoever for a significant amount of time before reaching that age? tldr time is an illusion so keith gets counted w the kiddos), serve them a plant with one of their meals or something, and send them into what's basically a rite of passage for them in which they're meant to prove they're ready for adulthood by overcoming a large internal barrier of some sort), the only requirement is it being a large internal barrier—doesn't matter if it's got good reason for being there or not, or if the consequences of overcoming it will be negative or positive, just that you're able to do it somehow. this is also why lance's test lasted longer—it's really hard to be able to say "I'm fine on my own, I don't _need_ you" when you're actively missing people and wishing that they were there, and that takes a long, long time to be able to get over or at least pushed to the side, especially if you don't have anybody else there to distract you from those feelings. honestly, it's also why I kind of felt like it was fitting that there weren't many scenes for him? he's alone. that's the purpose of his test, to isolate him. not even we can walk that journey with him.
> 
> \- hhhhhh as you can probably tell I'm a lot less familiar w the hunger games than w atla or hp, but I thought it'd be terrible for hunk so I ran w it :)
> 
> \- also didn't get many hp characters super involved bc a) I wanted the focus to stay on the paladins (which is also why none of the gaang got super involved either), and b) they weren't really relevant to the things she needed to come to terms w for the test? also ngl... it really bothers me when people act like everyone at hogwarts' lives would revolve around hp? like. he's basically a celebrity and/or popular kid. that's it. people have lives of their own. other things are happening. pidge is in too much of a crisis to get involved w The Drama
> 
> \- again, I'm so sorry this was so late!! I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and have a great new year!! <3


End file.
